Closed Doors
by the ticking clock
Summary: Growing up is never easy. The Pevensie children know that better than anyone-They grow up twice.


Lucy's first reaction once she is thrown from the wardrobe and back into her child body is horror.

She's far to small and her voice is to squeaky and when she raises her hand to speak no one listens. She can remember a time when she barely had to raise her voice above a whisper and every creature near would pause and listen. In Narnia, she had grown from a headstrong little girl to a respected queen. She'd struggled through awkward phases and the usual insecurities that come with growing up. She'd defeated her demons. She'd loved and she'd been loved.

Now, she is a little girl again.

Her terror and confusion choke her. She can still feel the warmth breath of Narnia spring air against the back of her neck, soaked into her skin. She can taste flowers on her tongue.

But when she stumbles to her feet and runs to the mirror, a ghost looks back at her.

She is once again a small child.

Lucy sets her jaw and lifts her chin. She may be a girl again, but that does not mean that her siblings need to see her cry.

* * *

Edmund is confused.

He is used to his body being strong and fit and tall. Over the years in Narnia he'd come to accept who he was. He'd learned to love himself, take pride in his abilities. He'd tried to be a good king, and while he may have not commanded the same love that Lucy did, he'd been respected.

The face that the mirror says belongs to him is a stranger's.

This face-with it's sharp jaw, burning eyes and trembling lips is a boy's face. This is the face that betrayed his family. This is the face that almost ruined everything.

Spinning from the glass, Edmund turns his back on the image. He will not be that child again. He remembers what it is like to suffer and to hate, and he never wants to go through that again.

* * *

Susan cries.

She does it in the privacy of her rooms-all awkward skirts and a body that feels far to confining and young. She cries for herself, but also for her siblings (especially Ed) because they'd all gone through so much, and grown so much, and now they have to begin all over again.

And they aren't in Narnia anymore-where animals whispers their own stories of the earth and there are Centaurs, and the trees dance and-

Susan lies down on the bed and closes her eyes.

She keeps Narnia trapped there-locked in a cage behind her eyelids-so she can return to it in her mind whenever she likes.

She does worry though, that someday it will only be a memory, like all the others. The mind has a strange way of making things you experienced in childhood seem unimportant.

* * *

Peter does not cry.

Peter runs.

He runs away from the others and outside onto the expansive lawn of the manor house, breathing in air in great, heaving gulps. There doesn't seem to be enough of it, and his chest is on fire and his eyes sting and everything is-

Narnia is gone.

His young body is a mess of confusion-all gangly limbs, awkward and raw and stumbling. He falls to his knees and tilts his head back to the sky. Are the stars the same here? Will he be able to count the constellations when he can't sleep? Will dreams of battle's lost and fading screams still haunt his nights, here?

Peter's body may be young, but he is accustomed to calming himself and taking control of situations. He is the high king, after all. He has a certain responsibility.

_Had _a responsibility.

Focusing on his breaths, he gradually slows his heart's frantic beat and steadies himself-hands braced against the ground.

_Breathe. _

It is a word that he repeats often to himself those first few weeks back, when the sound of city traffic startles him, when he reaches for a sword that's not there, when he catches himself saying something that a younger man would not, when he thinks he can run for miles and stumbles after only two.

_Breathe._

* * *

Edmund finds Lucy in her room.

It is strange, seeing her girl body now. Only a few days ago he would have politely knocked and asked for entrance into her chambers and she would have laughed and insisted he stop with the formalities. But seeing her now, with her face blotchy and red, her lips trembling, her feet kicking against the bedframe, he feels a strange, paternal urge to gather her up into his arms and hold her.

But Lucy has never needed protecting.

He raps his knuckles lightly against the door frame. "May I come in?" he asks, the words oddly formal in his boy-voice.

She looks up, and her eyes are still the same-deep and gentle and wise and hurting. "Of course you can," she says, and scoots to make room for him on the bed.

Edmund crosses the distance quickly. They sit a bit awkwardly, their elbows knocking together, close enough that he can see the tears beading at the corner of her eyes.

Finally she sighs and shifts to rest her head on his shoulder. "This is so wrong," she whispers, "this _feels _so wrong. What are we going to do?"

Edmund reaches for his sister's fingers and squeezes them. "I don't know, Lu," he says softly, the words bitter and sharp in his throat, "but we'll manage somehow."

* * *

Susan finds Peter sitting at the bottom of a stair case with his head in his hands.

She takes a moment to contemplate him-her brother, young now, all long legs and arms and awkward angles. His shoulders are shaking.

Slowly, Susan settles on the steps beside him. Gently, she reaches out a hand and combs in through his hair-slowly, methodically, like mother used too. This is not because of their sudden young-ness, it is something they've always done-comforted each other like this. They are the older ones-they have to be strong.

Except when they're with each other.

"What are we going to do?" Peter finally whispers-hoarse and unsteady. "I can't-"

His words are swallowed by a sudden, strangled breath. Susan knows what he is not saying. He can't live through a war with guns and bombs. He can't go back to being a boy who is expected to go to school and be reckless. He can't stay trapped within these confining walls that do not know the freedom of Narnia's summer winds and crashing seas.

He can't grow up _again. _

But he has to.

"I don't suppose we'll ever be able to go back?" it is what Susan has been thinking, these past hours, what she hasn't dared speak aloud for fear that the action will make the words true. Not go back to Narnia? Their people need them. They have to find a way somehow.

But this is Peter, highking, asking her. This is her terrified brother who won't dare admit to the others that he is petrified.

"I don't know," she says, and Peter collapses against her. He wraps his arms tightly about her waist and buries his head in her shoulder. Susan holds him too, and let's him cry.

She clenches her jaw and presses her cheek against the top of his head. Her eyes are burning and dry.

She has shed all her tears.

* * *

They grow up.

They go to school.

Slowly, they start to remember what it is like to be children in a war-torn world they can't fix.

At night, Lucy lies awake in bed, and wonders what the Beavers are doing, and if the animals miss her as much as she misses them, and where in the world is Aslan?

Edmund wakes up screaming with the White Witch's face flashing behind his eyes for the first time in decades. Peter goes to him and talks him through the breathing exercises until they can both pretend they are anywhere but the mansion.

Susan writes stories in a journal about talking horses, archery and a lion.

Eventually, Narnia becomes a fairy tale in their minds, a half remembered, aching sweetness whose absence they feel down to the marrow of their bones.

But children do not feel things like that-not quite so heavy.

So they force smiles and they make new friends.

The door to Narnia is closed.

The door to England has opened.

The Pevensie children walk through it with halting footsteps, but they walk, praying that someday, they'll step onto a train or open a door and Narnia will be there to greet them.

It's a foolish hope, but they cling to it.

They are children now, after all.


End file.
